Ali Imron, one of the few defendants to express remorse over the terrorist bombings that killed 202 people on the Indonesian island of Bali, was today sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the attacks.

"Ali Imron has been found guilty, in a legal and convincing manner, of terrorism," Judge Mulyani, who read out the verdict, said.

Prosecutors had asked for a 20-year prison term, but the judge instead handed down a life sentence. Imron had already admitted involvement in the October 12 2002 attacks.

He could have been sentenced to death, but the five-judge panel had earlier said that a lighter sentence was justified by his expressions of remorse and his testimony against other defendants on trial.

Imron's older brother, Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, and Imam Samudra, the mastermind of the Bali attack, have already been sentenced death.

Both defiantly defended the bombings as necessary to avenge the treatment of Muslims at the hands of the US and Israel.

Imron, a 33-year old Islamic boarding school teacher, was arrested in January. He admitted building one of the two bombs that ripped through two packed nightclubs, and driving a bomb-laden minivan to the site of the attack. The Bali attack is blamed on the Jemaah Islamiyah network, which reportedly wants to turn much of south-east Asia into an Islamic state.

The network's commander, Riduan Isamuddin Hambali, was captured in Thailand last month, and is in US custody.

Imron is one of more than 35 people to have been arrested over the blasts. Nine have been convicted so far, with sentences ranging from seven years to death.